


It's Okay; I Gotcha

by Dracoduceus



Series: Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men (Often Go Awry) [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hanzo's self-loathing, Inspired by a comic, M/M, Pining Hanzo Shimada, Pre-Relationship, the Shimadas need a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 11:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14496042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: Inspired bya comicon tumblr.Hanzo returns from a difficult mission to the sound of voices.Sometimes even ex-yakuza ninja assassins need a hug.





	It's Okay; I Gotcha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vespillia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vespillia/gifts).



> Inspired by [this comic](http://gastriticmouse.tumblr.com/post/155203415204) by [gastriticmouse](http://gastriticmouse.tumblr.com) over on tumblr. I highly recommend checking their works out - they're fricken amazing!

It was supposed to be a simple recon mission.

Lately it seemed that a lot of his missions started and ended with that phrase. It was something that Dr. Ziegler snapped at Winston or Soldier 76 as she patched him up with hands that shook with what Hanzo could only imagine was disgust at his weakness.

 _It was supposed to be a_ recon _mission,_ she’d say. _That’s why he wasn’t sent with backup!_

If it was Soldier 76 that received the sharp edge of Mercy’s tongue he’d say, _He should be able to take care of himself through any situation - that’s why we trusted him with this mission_ . If it was Winston, he’d say, _We couldn’t spare someone to spot him for something this sensitive_.

_You’re a failure of a son!_

Hanzo’s feet stuttered and he stopped like an idiot in the middle of the dark hallway.

_Useless._

He didn’t know why he was surprised anymore. Breathing out a heavy sigh that made the bruises speckling his ribs ache he forced himself forward. He went over his mental checklist, doing his best to ignore the insidious voice that whispered from the depths of his past.

_I’m ashamed of you._

Debrief: complete

Post-mission check-up: complete

The bandage over his cheek itched and the butterfly stitches on his forehead burned and the bruises littering his face and body throbbed as he shuffled down the hall. For once the case that held his gear felt too heavy, cinched too tightly across his aching chest.

His arms burned and his hands shook in a way that was easily hidden by the wide pockets of his jacket.

Ahead of him, the door to the living quarters opened and he squinted at the sudden flare of light, even the gentle golden glow from the lamps in the entryway hurting his eyes.

_Just die._

He winced at the ache in his face and the way it pulled at his swollen nose. It was a special kind of agony to feel his bridge piercing tug against the skin and he tried not to show any more weakness than he had already.

Next on his list was, of course, to speak with Genji.

As he blinked to get the spots out of his eyes-

_Rabbit brain!_

-he contemplated his slowly improving relationship with Genji. Despite all odds, despite everything he had done...he still had a brother.

 _He still had a brother that loved him_.

Did that make him a failure? To be unable to kill his target?

_Stupidity incarnate!_

He took a deep breath that made his ribs ache as a shape took form in the soft golden light of the common area. It had become a kind of unspoken ritual for them: if they were assigned to separate missions, they would meet up at the other’s return after their debriefs and checkups as if to make sure the other was alright.

Despite their history and the hate-charged words that they slung at each other in moments of weakness, they were all each other had. Even if they were fighting, even if barbed words had been flung and their brittle bonds stretched to breaking, they were still brothers.

And it didn’t matter how late they had to stay up, the other was always there, waiting; needing that reassurance that the last kind thing they had of their shattered family would return alive.

As Hanzo looked up at the shape in the light, as if a sinner begging undeserved peace from an angel, he realized that it was not Genji.

His heart sank.

YOU’RE NO CHILD OF MINE!

Who would see him like this? Weak and pathetic, beaten on a simple recon mission because he didn’t adequately watch his back, didn’t hear the men sneaking up on him while he sat like a gargoyle.

Would it be young Hana? Who was both innocent and not; who suffered from an insomnia they all pretended she didn’t have? (That was the primary reason for her streams, she had once admitted to Hanzo during a particularly bad night. Streaming in addition to her duties made it seem like she was _doing something_ instead of just _suffering_ and reliving the screams and explosions of her homeland and the battles she’d witnessed there.)

_You have to be better than that!_

He blinked and the shape coalesced into a man (judging by the broad shoulders) wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. “Heh,” the figure said in a voice thick with sleep. “Wouldja look what the cat dragged in?”

Backlit by the warm golden lights of the living quarters much like the angel he insisted he wasn’t stood none other than Jesse McCree.

This iteration of the famous outlaw as sleep-mussed, his auburn locks sticking up stubbornly in a dozen different directions, his eyes cracked half-open as if he had just been woken by something (like the foul stench of Hanzo’s misery, his ineptitude; his failure). He stood at the top of the stairs in a pair of flannel pajama pants and a pair of fuzzy socks with D.Va’s logo that she had gotten him as a gag gift for Christmas. A fuzzy blanket was wrapped around his shoulders and held shut in front of him, giving him the austere silhouette of a superhero or –villain.

He ruined the picture by giving a jaw-cracking yawn, smacking his lips as he gazed down into the shadows where Hanzo stood like the devil he was.

_Insufficient!_

“Hey,” he said in the thick voice of someone that had been sleeping deeply only a few minutes ago. He yawned again. “Promised Genji I’d stay awake fer ya,” he continued, his accent stronger as he squinted down the stairs at Hanzo. “Winston sent ‘im away – they left not an hour ‘go – an’ Gen’ wanted someone here t’ mee’cha.”

_Heir of Shimada!_

Hanzo stood dumbly at the base of the stairs, unable to say anything – his cheek and jaw ached anyway, so he wasn’t sure what the response would have sounded like even if he knew what to say.

So like a coward and an idiot he said nothing, rooted to the spot.

McCree blinked drowsily and seemed to rouse a bit, narrowing his eyes further as he peered into the shadows. “Ah,” he said, sounding far too knowing despite his drowsy voice. “I know that look.” He opened the edges of his blanket invitingly. “C’mere.”

For a long moment Hanzo was frozen in place, staring up the short flight of stairs at the man haloed in warm golden light. The voices of his past, the saccharine voices of his demons continued to whisper and clamor in his mind, bouncing around the walls of his skull until it felt like his head was full to bursting of voices dripping their poison.

_Focus!_

“C’mere,” McCree repeated, his stern face softening.

It was a softness and a warmth that Hanzo didn’t deserve, but it looked so inviting.

After Mercy’s cold, clinical touches.

_Improve!_

After Soldier 76’s harsh, judgmental stares.

After a long, bumpy plane ride that was not at all Tracer’s fault because she’d had to duck and weave and fly erratically to avoid things he should have taken care of prior to her approach.

After a brutal fight that was more a brawl of fists and feet and improvised weapons – and later the very weapons he had been sent to gather information on; weapons whose effects he now had _very_ intimate knowledge of.

_Weakling!_

After failing to look out for anyone sneaking up behind him and failing to defend himself from a simple attack like a novice – like a _child_ ; like a fool.

_Weakest heir yet._

After failing his mission of stealth that should have been something he excelled at.

_Replacement._

After failing to prove his worth to everyone in this simple action that should have been _easy_.

After failing…

_Just get it over with._

His feet stepped without his knowledge, causing aches to ripple up his body from even that brief moment of stillness. Already his muscles were stiffening up and pain was making itself known throughout his body as the very last dregs of adrenaline that he had been clinging to wore off.

From the top of the stairs McCree stood, his arms open and outstretched. He wore a slight smile, his eyes soft as he gazed down at Hanzo as he painstakingly climbed the stairs.

“There we go,” McCree said when he was a few steps away. He seemed more awake now but even as his eyes lingered on the bandages slapped haphazardly over the many bruises and lacerations on Hanzo’s face, there was no judgment or disgust.

_I regret the day I gave birth to you._

Hanzo took the final step and McCree wrapped his blanket-covered arms around him in an embrace that smelled like coffee and whiskey and stale tobacco from those damned cigarillos the gunslinger insisted on smoking. Like a chimney, like an aura that lingered as a reminder of his presence, a sign to the world that _Jesse McCree was here_.

For all his words otherwise, for all the times he had mocked McCree for…well, _everything_ …for all the times he claimed that McCree stank of tobacco and whiskey and…and…

…he needed it.

This time it wasn’t an attack on the senses; this time it wasn’t too overwhelming, didn’t hang around his body like an obnoxious cloud.

Hanzo’s shoulders shook as he tipped his face into the crook of McCree’s neck and breathed in as deep as he could with his swollen nose: whiskey, coffee, stale sweat and sleep; the faint lingering smells of cedar and sage and the generic soap that Winston bought for the base, claiming that anything too fruity gave him a headache.

NO ONE

WILL ever

love you,

the last, insidious voice whispered though the tail end began fading away as if the mere presence of McCree scared it away. As if his blanket-clad arms that wrapped so gently around his shoulders, careful of the minefield of injuries and the equipment bag slung across his chest, shielded him even from those last terrible thoughts and the whispers of his darkest demons.

But the last blow still dealt the most damage and Hanzo’s breath hitched – then hitched again when the motion caused sharp pains in his bruised ribs.

“Shh,” McCree said gently, his breath puffing warmly against Hanzo’s ear and the shaved sides of his undercut. “I gotcha.”

 _No one will ever love you_ , it had whispered, and Hanzo crumpled in on himself, shaking with the effort of holding back truly embarrassing sobs as he realized how true it was.

…and how much he truly wanted someone – a certain someone that smelled like the hot desert air at high noon, whose voice was as calming as a warm drink on a cold night – to love him back.

The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning – like the strike of an arrow full of dragons: _I love Jesse McCree_.

Truly this is what broke him – a proud ex _-yakuza_ princeling, an assassin (almost) without peer, a mercenary with enough blood on his hands to permanently stain them red; merely the thought of loving someone as warm and as bright as the sun.

He broke down in silent sobs that sent shots of pain lancing up from his ribs, made him grimace in a way that pulled his bandages and bruises. As McCree shushed him gently, pressing his cheek and lips against his hairline, against the sensitive sides of his shaved head, he let his bandaged and bruised and battered hands out of his pockets and clung awkwardly to McCree’s hips, unable to bring his arms any more forward to return the embrace – partly out of pride but mostly out of the lingering pain of his injuries not soothed away by Dr. Ziegler’s nanites.

“Hey,” McCree said softly, oblivious. “It’s okay; I gotcha.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for letting me play in your sandbox, [friend](http://gastriticmouse.tumblr.com)! I so hope that you feel I did your comic justice. It was such a lovely piece! 
> 
> Hopefully I'll have a few more to share with you soon!
> 
> ~[DC](https://classywastelandbread.tumblr.com)


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